I never realized how much power my husband had over me until we began our divorce.

I started to understand that he was like a “God” to me.

I believed that if I made my God happy… I would be rewarded. If I made my God angry… I would be punished.

I had put him up on a pedestal and because of this, I could not look at things clearly during our divorce.

My perception of what he was had caused my thinking to become skewed and clouded.

I started to believe that he had not been at fault in any way. I started doubting his part in the downfall of our marriage.

It didn’t seem to matter that he had become unwilling to work on our relationship…

that he had moved out and left me with our children…

that his behavior towards me after our separation had been “less than kind.”

I couldn’t seem to remember how bad things had been before our break-up.

I started to believe that if I had behaved differently, none of this would have happened…

If I had worked harder, initiated counseling sooner, given him more space, anything, we would still be together and things would be fine.

People outside of our marriage, who were close to us, couldn’t understand where I was coming from.

Friends who were mutual to us kept reminding me of everything that had gone wrong.

No one can truly know for sure what transpires between two people in a relationship except for those two people, but often, people outside of the emotional turmoil can lead a “clearer” perspective.

They kept asking me, “Why do you take every word he says as the gospel truth?”

“Why do you give him so much power over you?”

“Have you forgotten that he has a part in this? Have you forgotten that?”

I started to see that we both had contributed to the downfall of our marriage and that a lot of my part in it had been putting my husband in the position of my Higher Power.

I had sacrificed myself believing it would make him happy and when it didn’t… I felt betrayed and used.

I had made him into a punishing God and I bought into believing that I should be punished.

I allowed him to punish me but now, I didn’t want to be punished anymore.

I had to remind myself that I did the best that I could in our relationship.

I had to remind myself that I had been willing to work on our relationship up until the day he said that he was unwilling.

I had to remember that I had allowed myself to believe that by worshipping his needs that I would be loved and cared for in return.

Putting my husband in a the position of Higher Power over my life had left me feeling powerless.

I had to look to a new Higher Power, one that was not human, one that could lift me spiritually and protect me from harm:

A kind and loving Higher Power instead of a punishing, benevolent, human one.

“Dear God, help me to walk with you. Help me to see that we are all equals on this Earth. No man or woman has power over another.”

I was at work one day when I suddenly felt overwhelmed with emotion.
I missed my husband so much.
I still wanted him back and I was mourning the loss of my dream.
I was passing papers back to my students when one of them noticed that I was beginning to cry.
He asked me what was wrong and my tears started to fall.
I tried to stop, but the kindness of his asking, left me vulnerable.
I was worried that my students would be upset. Here, their role model, was breaking down inappropriately at work.
They all looked to me for an answer and so, I decided that I could use this as a “teaching” moment.
I reached for a tissue and began my story.
I told them I was very sad about my divorce and that sometimes, the emotions just came out whether I wanted them to or not.
I asked them if they had ever been so sad, that they had experienced an emotional outburst.
Most of my students had some type of experience that had carried emotion over into their everyday lives.
We talked a bit and they said they were sorry I was sad.
Emotional outbursts do not have to be embarrassing.
They do not have to be made into a “big deal.”
Emotions are natural during times of sadness, change, and stress.
By calmly walking through the experience, and being honest with others, I could come back to a place of serenity.
I had been fighting to hold everything in yet… by letting it out and letting it go… I was able to move on.
I was able to regain my footing.

“Dear God, help me to be easy on myself. During times of sorrow, help me to express my feelings, pray for release of my pain, and move on with hope into my future.”

We are trained, in relationships, to play our part.

My husband and I had been together for many years. I had been with him since I was very young.

When he took an action in an argument, I knew where it would lead and of course, I would take my usual course of reaction.

We had established our patterns very early on and they were patterns that were not easy to break.

I had a very hard time learning to take opposite action in my relationship with him.

In fact, looking back, I wish that this was something I had worked harder on.

Taking an opposite action can defuse a heated situation.

If my husband yells in an argument, do I have to yell back?

Will that really make the situation any better?

If he drives off down the road in anger, and I choose to follow him, chase him down to get the “final say,” is that going to solve all of the problems in our relationship?

Our divorce was causing our emotions and tempers to run hotter than it ever had in our marriage.

This was the time to put opposite action into practice.

So…

If I wanted to call him… I didn’t.

If I wanted to see him when he was scheduled to come and pick up our son… I left.

If I wanted to help him, “fix him” in some area of his life… I stopped myself from jumping in.

I had spent years doing the same thing and expecting it to yield different results. It hadn’t.

Our marriage had failed and continuing on with this same type of behavior during our divorce wouldn’t “magically” make it all work now.

I had to take opposite action.

It was one of the most difficult things I ever had to do.

Many times, I slipped. I would revert back to my old ways, the same actions that caused me pain in the first place but, I became aware of what I was doing and my awareness lead to the realization that if I didn’t want to put myself in painful situations any more, than I was the one who had to stop. I had to change my actions.

“Dear God, help me to learn from my past actions. If I continue to do the same thing and expect different results, I will only hurt myself again and again. Help me to take opposite action in a difficult situation.”

I found that to be of service to others helped me through my divorce.

When I was working with someone whose situation might be worse than my own, I could put my own problems in perspective.

If I could offer comfort to someone when I felt the need for comfort, it helped not only to soothe them… but to soothe me.

By giving of myself, I could let go of my own problems and step outside of a situation that might become disheartening.

By sharing my compassion with others, I was able to share in their experience instead of dwelling on my own.

In some cases, I had walked such a similar path to the person I was caring for, that I was able to offer my own experience, strength, and hope and help them through their own trying time.

Helping others… helps me.

“Dear God, help me to give freely to others. By bringing comfort to them, I bring comfort to myself.”

Once I looked at my part in the break-up of my marriage, I knew then that I was willing to admit my faults.

Many times during my relationship with my spouse,  I had taken on the role of “martyr” and used my husband’s flaws against him.

When my husband had been active in his addiction, I had stood by him and yes, I believed that was what a good committed spouse was supposed to do but…

When he became sober again… I often used that “loyalty” to bully him and get my way.

If I didn’t want him to go out: I brought up trust issues created by his active addiction.

If I wanted him to help more: I reminded him of how much help I had given him, how I had shouldered the responsibility for our family when he couldn’t.

I had a tendency to use his weaknesses against him.

I felt bad that I had done this and wished that I could take back my prior actions but… I could not.

All I could do, was to willingly admit my own faults to my husband: I owed him an amends.

When I spoke to him, he not only accepted my amends, but made one of his own.

Admitting my faults helped me to learn from my past mistakes and work towards not repeating the mistakes in my future relationships.

Admitting my faults brought me to a new “peace of mind.”

“Dear God, help me to admit my faults without being hard on myself. Each of us makes mistakes in life, help me to learn from them.”

Sometimes, when we begin to look at our part in things, we can get caught up in blame.

I wanted to take a “fearless” look at my part in the break-up of my marriage, I wanted to learn from my mistakes and move forward, but I saw so many things that I wished I had done differently that all I did was blame myself.

I felt like such a horrible person.

How could I have done that?

Why didn’t I see what I had been doing to our relationship?

Why hadn’t I thought about apologizing or changing before our marriage had gone bad?

It was hard to accept that it was too late to take back any of my prior actions and change the outcome of the situation.

I knew divorce was inevitable.

The only way I could use this trying situation to my emotional and spiritual advantage, was to look at my part in the situation and assess what had worked in the marriage and what hadn’t.

What would I do differently the next time I was in a relationship?

What had caused me to take these actions to begin with?

How could I be more loving and kind, more present, in all of my future relationships?

I had to get past my own blame, and truly look at my part.

I had to remember that I had done the best I could at the time, and that I had never intentionally tried to cause problems in my marriage.

I had to be kind to myself and admit, that like every other human being in the world, I was capable of making errors in judgement and terrible mistakes.

If I could do this, I would be able to learn and grow from my experience.

If I just stepped back, looked at my part, and learned from the situation, I would be a better person for it.

“Dear God, help me to look at my part in the situation without blame. Help me to know that I did the best I could, with the skills I had, at the time.”

I had always struggled with my belief in a Higher Power.

As a child, I was taught that God was always watching and that if I did something bad, that I would be punished.

I felt that I had to always be on my best behavior.

Each time I made a minor mistake, I would look up to Heaven and wait for the punishment to take place.

This vision of God scared me.

It created a God that I feared to trust.

During my divorce, this made it very hard to depend on my Higher Power to take care of me.

How was I to believe that my Higher Power would help me through this disheartening situation in my adult life when deep-down inside, I believed that I must have done something wrong to be punished like this?

The scared child that still lived somewhere inside of me, thought I must deserve this pain, that I was doomed, and it was terrible.

I believed that I could never live up to my Higher Power’s expectations of me.

I felt hopeless and full of despair.

I began to look at my own concept of a Higher Power.

I began to exam what I had told my own children about God.

I had told them that God was a loving, kind, and forgiving God.

That God would never leave you.

That everything would be okay if you walked your path and trusted that God was leading you to where  you were supposed to go, and that God was always watching out for them.

Had I been telling them something I myself did not believe?

I realized then that I had to let go of the God in my past and embrace the Higher Power who had been with me all along.

The one who gave me my beautiful children.

The one who led me to the rooms of Al-Anon.

The one who walked with me while I worked towards a new beginning, kept me healthy for my family during these stressful times, and surrounded me with people who loved and watched over me during and after my terrible divorce.

Was this the destructive God of my childhood?

No, this was the loving Higher Power of my life that protected me as I walked through my pain.

I now believe in my heart and my soul that today, I am exactly where my Higher Power wants me to be and that just around the turn of this path I walk, is my new beginning… the beginning my loving Higher Power has waiting for me.

“Dear God, help me to let you into my heart. If I have faith in your plans, I will find hope in my future.”

My son and I were in the car one night when he started to tell me of an argument he had with his father.

He was very hurt by his father’s actions and wanted to know why people said and did hurtful things.

I felt so bad for him.

He adored his dad and I knew that during the divorce, things might be said and done that could hurt my son.

I knew that I was powerless over my husband and his actions… that I could only work on things from my end… and so I told my son that I had never much liked the fact that we were powerless over other people.

He smiled.

I could tell that he was happy that I felt the same way that he did.

I said that I knew that his dad loved him very much but, that sometimes, people said or did things that really had nothing to do with us.

It may seem like they were directing their anger or hurtful comments our way, but really, they were dealing with their own set of issues.

I told him that didn’t mean we had to accept that type of behavior.

He could tell his father that his feelings were hurt.

He could tell his father that he didn’t like when he treated him poorly but… he could not control his father’s actions.

That night, I heard him speak to his dad on the phone.

He told his father that he had hurt his feelings earlier that day.

I couldn’t hear my husband’s response, but I didn’t need to.

I  knew then, that my son had taken the first step in admitting that he was powerless over his father’s actions, and that he did have power over his own.

He could let his father know that what he said had hurt him.

He could let his feelings be known.

He had no control over the outcome but… he could be heard.

“Dear God, help me to remember that I am powerless over others. I cannot control a loved one’s actions or attitudes but I can work on my own.” 

One weekend, my son was walking across the living room when he tripped and broke his hand.

I took him to the emergency room, where I suddenly felt totally overwhelmed.

It was all just too much.

I felt like it had been one thing after another through my divorce and now… my poor son was hurt.

What was even worse, is that I felt myself spiral into shame when the thought, Oh no, now I’m going to have more work to do, popped into my head. My guilt, for even thinking such a thought, was unbearable.

I was spinning with the idea that yet another thing had just been “thrown” at me by the universe.

I wanted my husband to help but I knew, that I probably would not be able to get from him what I wanted.

I missed having someone who could run to the store while I did laundry.

I missed having someone to help with the homework while I cooked dinner.

I missed having someone to hold my hand, soothe me, when I worried about our children.

But my life had changed: It was now… all up to me.

I called my husband from the emergency room and told him what had happened and expressed my feelings and needs.

I was right… he couldn’t help.

He was working until 10pm and I would have to deal with this on my own.

I hung up feeling frustrated.

That evening, when I was finally calm again and lying in bed alone, I thought about my husband and all of the years we had spent together.

My husband had been out of town constantly for work.

His job took him away from our family for a couple of months at a time.

What had I done then… to make it through?

I had no one to help me during that time period so… why could I handle things then… but not now?

I realized that I was feeling overwhelmed because I “believed” that I had been left with all of the responsibilities… I “believed” that my husband was no longer part of my “team.”

When we had been together, I had picked up the slack when I needed to, and I knew that he would pick up the slack when he needed to.

How would we be a team now?

I thought about teams. When a team wasn’t working they restructured and restructuring for me would be; changing my attitude.

It was hard to know that he was in town today and unavailable for me and for our son, and would not be available to me as he had been before.

But I knew for now, that I would have to temporarily be my own team in this situation.

Sometimes my husband would have  to work and do other things and like in the past, when he was out of town, I would have to depend on myself.

He wasn’t saying no forever… he was just saying no for today.

He was at work.

Our son was not seriously injured.

I had already handled things at the hospital.

It was time for me to accept the situation and move on with my day.

Later that week, our son needed to see the orthopedic to get his splint removed and his hand casted. When I called my husband for help, he was there for me. He took our son to the doctor’s office, fed him, and played with him until I came home from work and I was grateful for his help.

By changing my attitude, and accepting the restructuring of my family team, I had let go of being overwhelmed and found a way to handled my day-to-day responsibilities with calm resolve.

“Dear God, when I find myself in a trying situation, help me to walk through it with calm resolve and see solutions instead of problems.”